Iron Man 3 began shooting in North Carolina last Wednesday under the working title Caged Heat. (Sidenote: I love the cheesy working titles studios give big budget projects. I hope the next Avengers movie uses the working title Nights in Rodanthe. What do you mean, they can’t use that?)

Before The Avengerssmashed records, Iron Man 3 was given a budget of $140 million. In light of the ridiculous pile of cash The Avengers made, Latino Review reports Iron Man 3‘s budget has just been upped to $200 million. An extra $60 million could buy a lot of sympathy cards for Terrence Howard.

They’re also adding several cast members as shooting begins, including the actors (from left to right) in the picture above:

William Sadler is a character actor from a ton of TV shows and movies like Shawshank Redemption, but I’ll always remember him as the Grim Reaper in Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey and Jaye’s dad on Wonderfalls. He was also spotted on the set with Guy Pearce (who is playing Aldrich Killian). Which character Sadler is playing hasn’t been confirmed.

James Badge Dale (World War Z, The Lone Ranger) has signed on to play Eric Savin. In the comics, the character was a veteran who was turned into the cyborg Coldblood after stepping on a landmine. Deadline describes his character as a villain, while Guy Pearce and Ben Kingsley are also signed to play villains. How many villains do they need?

Fan Bingbing has been offered a role but hasn’t officially signed yet. The film’s Chinese backers (Walt Disney China and DMG Entertainment) want well-known Chinese stars in some of the roles, which is why Andy Lau and now Fan Bingbing have been offered parts. Twitch reports Yao Chen and Liu Ye have also been contacted about possible roles in the film.

Jon Favreau won’t be directing the third film (Shane Black is taking over), but he will return to play Happy Hogan. He tweeted a picture of his personalized chair from the set.

Ashley Hamilton (Sunset Beach, Dancing With the Stars, son of George Hamilton, stepson of Rod Stewart, already friends with Robert Downey, Jr.) has been cast as the villain Firepower (AKA Jack Taggert). Variety describes Firepower as a “government cyborg” who is “the pilot of an experimental armored suit under the secret mission dubbed Project: Firepower. He eventually uses the suit to battle Iron Man.” Yes, another villain.

Join The Discussion

William Sadler was Sloan from Section 31 on DS9. Probably the single greatest contribution of the series to the greater universe of star trek is the concept of section 31, even if the episodes themselves weren’t exactly perfect.

I think this could be fine if the villains are just a bunch of people turned into cyborgs under the rule of a crazy doctor dude. In this event the individual villains don’t need a lot of screen time to develop characters but will provide a lot of visual appeal. Basically like every TV show or Comic ever.